CMU students working on website for Jerome Township

Published 7:00 pm, Monday, November 21, 2005

Jerome Township residents and officials will have a new way to communicate when a new website, www.jerometownship.org, launches later this year.

Thanks to a statewide educational program, students from a Central Michigan University class are helping nine municipalities design websites, Jerome included.

The students, all seniors, working on the project in the website development class are Erin Dawe, project lead; Eric Rau, content manager; Brad McCloy, designer; and Shaunette Massey, coder.

The program has benefits for both sides involved in partnership, said professor Michael Gee, class instructor.

"The students receive real project experience developing a website for a client and the local governments get a website created for free," he said.

Rau agreed, and said the project was a good way to experience the life cycle of a project with actual clients and users in mind.

"You get to see people actually using it," he said.

Rau lobbied to work on Jerome's site as his father, Paul Rau, lives in the township.

Aside from using the site as a way for new residents to get basic township information, officials want the site to be a way to communicate with residents both ways about issues such as zoning, said Anna Merillat, the township trustee who is working with students on the project.

"We want to tell people about zoning laws. We want to have forums available to (residents) for site plan reviews and information on who to contact for permits or problems," said Merillat.

"We want to have a place where people can communicate with their township officials because so many (officials) have day jobs and are hard to reach."

The township gave the students a list of priorities for the site, and Rau said the project has passed the planning stage and now students actually are implementing the township's needs, spending the rest of their class time this semester on the site.

"We have all of the pieces," he said. "We just have to tie it together."

Merillat is pleased with how the project is going, and is looking forward to its completion.

Plus, the cooperation between the township and the program will save the township $3,000 in services for web design, she said.

"We're really excited to get it up and running and we hope people will really use it," said Merillat.

Currently, there is no content at their site, but students and officials expect it to launch by the first of next year.